Choosing not to get vaccine

[InnerDiscomfort]

Not looking to start a fight, but interested if you have made the decision not to get the vaccine and have no condition that you know of that would stop you, why not?

Family members abroad have decided not to get the vaccine (Pfizer I think). Vague concerns about it not being safe and/ or tested enough. They both work outside the home and have families. Fairly fit and healthy so unlikely to be seriously affected by COVID, under 50 years of age.

It's not something I agree with but up to them I guess. I'm also unlikely to get ill but had my first vaccine mainly to help stop the spread (and I'd like to go abroad!)

So if you haven't had it, I'm interested in your reasoning if you would care to share.

People don’t necessarily want to benefit from the program without having the vaccine. They just don’t want the vaccine.

This is true. I won’t be having the vaccine but I can’t really help the fact that I’ll ‘benefit’ from others having it.
My reason for having it is probably quite controversial but this thread is the reason that I just don’t talk about it in real life. People basically tell you you’re a murderer if you don’t have it. We do have to respect that people have different views and do have a right to choose.

@PetraRabbit

babbaloushka I appreciate your calm post. So many replies in favour of mass vaccination are hysterical and emotion driven.

I think the problem is that the questions I have are ones noone can answer without time travel!
They are: What will the long term effects of these vaccines be? I'm not looking for "all the evidence suggests" or "it follows that..." I'm only really going to be satisfied with the passage of time actually confirming safety over the next five to ten years. Even the best scientists get surprises sometimes.

My other question is whether any of the other vaccines will have their own 'Astra Zeneca moment' as more data becomes available? The blood clot issue was not predicted so it's hard to reassure me another issue is impossible.

That's really the essence of why most who are not keen will be unpersuadable.

Good and valid questions!

The only long term effect a vaccine has is storing the response of your own immune system. Much like when you have a cold, your body makes antibodies to attack the pathogen, and it remembers the antibodies so that next time that pathogen is detected, the immune response happens much more quickly. The constituents of the vaccine (the bits that are injected) are broken down and ejected within a few days, the only lasting effect is your body's immune response.

This is also why people feel side effects; it's not the actual vaccine that makes you feel feverish or achy, but rather the work of your immune system against what it perceives as a viral infection. In an unfortunate way, the side effects are confirmation that your immune system is doing its job, creating antibodies, raising body temperate and working overtime to "kill" the virus.

The issue with AZ clots, as you said, was unpredictable, and even though the instance was comparatively very, very small, it is still a valid concern. The most reassuring advice I can offer is that given the millions of patients receiving the different vaccines, there is an awful, awful lot of data available, far more than we would ever hope for most trials, which allows problems to be identified and dealt with promptly.

In the scale of pharmaceuticals, not even half the drugs you are likely to take (antibiotics, painkillers, steroids) have the same trial sample size, so the risk mitigation of these vaccines is vastly superior to others. No drug is taken without risk, nor any action, really, so I think sometimes putting the risk into perspective is very useful and by comparing it to things you would take without hesitation, like paracetamol, might help alleviate these concerns?

A final point would be that the risk of getting a blood clot from COVID is ten times higher than that of the 79 in 20 million from the AZ vaccine. My company has had an unprecedented demand for child dosages of the drugs used to treat blood clots, and friends on frontline wards have reported seeing more children than ever suffering blood clots secondary to a COVID infection.

Any more questions, please ask! I hope that helps a bit.

And @PetraRabbit for what it's worth, I've had both of mine, and have been working in biochem since I graduated from Uni. If I had any doubts about lack of due diligence in the process, or prevailing risks based on the data (I get to see some of the inside stuff!) I would have absolutely declined and would have encouraged my daughter to do the same. As it stands, the work has been impeccable, the statistical analyses utterly sound and the testing process fastidious. Both my daughter and I were reassured by what we saw, and are in a very good position to discriminate good pharmaceutical practice from bad.

Fortunately I’m one of the last to be offered the jab so I shall be watching and waiting. I’m not sold either way yet not that anyone in rl knows that though.

@babbaloushka your 79 in 20millon figure is quite out of date.

“There were 242 cases of the clots, with 6 occurring after second doses. Up to April 28 there had been 22.6 million first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine given in Britain, with 5.9 million second doses.”

We also don’t yet know the breakdown of vaccine doses by age. It’s not really accurate to give someone their risk of developing a clot out of the total number of doses given if the incidence of clots is known to be higher in younger age groups (which it is).

[quote gelatodipistacchio]@bumbleymummy this is a challenge facing us all, and we all have to do our parts. If someone wants to opt out of making a small sacrifice to solve an international crisis, then I have the right to think that they are selfish freeloaders.

It's like a pp said - this is akin to a war effort. I think in WWII, people who didn't contribute to the greater good were looked down on. I think the same attitude is fair here.[/quote]
What about those who were philosophically opposed to war, and went about doing their version of good rather than what was prescribed by authorities?

You're right, though, what you have every right to think and express what you like. And others have the right to do the same.

Incidentally, shaming people about not doing something has been shown to be a very poor way to get people to do that thing. It's likely that the shaming posts on this thread have the effect of making people LESS likely to get vaccinated. How does that stand with you, morally?

@HelpMeRhondaYeah if someone has gone through this nightmare and still doesn't care to contribute to the solution, I truly don't think that anything could make them think about anything other than themselves.

I originally posted to say that I got vaccinated despite my own fears and someone jumped on me, saying that I should not make myself out to be a saint for having been vaccinated. These people are primed to be defensive and to put down those of us who are acting in the public good. Selfish.

[quote gelatodipistacchio]@HelpMeRhondaYeah if someone has gone through this nightmare and still doesn't care to contribute to the solution, I truly don't think that anything could make them think about anything other than themselves.

I originally posted to say that I got vaccinated despite my own fears and someone jumped on me, saying that I should not make myself out to be a saint for having been vaccinated. These people are primed to be defensive and to put down those of us who are acting in the public good. Selfish.[/quote]
Hmm.... I think you’re misrepresenting your original post a bit and making it out to be more innocent than it actually was.

Just to remind you that this was part of your original post:

I think anyone who chooses not to get vaccinated is a freeloading, selfish twat who doesn't care about the greater good.

So I think calling people ‘freeloading, selfish twats’ is enough of a reason for people to come across as a bit defensive.

I’m not putting you down either. You got your vaccine, good for you. Stop judging others and hurling insults at people who have made a different decision to you.

Apologies for lack of precision.

Sterilising vaccines are only significant where infection can be spread in the asymptomatic or presymptomatic.

Other viruses that are more virulent have not become pandemic because hosts quickly become ill or die and are only spread once the host is very ill.

The current vaccines are demonstrated to impact severity of disease. Because asymptomatic spread with no therapeutics or vaccines that reduce disease can quickly overwhelm a health service.

You as an individual may still be infected with the virus but the infection not spread to Covid disease. You may still be infectious even if you have been vaccinated. Hence, if vaccination increases asymptomatic infection that can mutate or spread or both, vaccination may help the virus (not Covid disease) fly under the radar.

If the virus was only spread once disease was evident we would be home and dry. BJ wouldn't be saying cases of infection will inevitably increase. Fauci wouldn't be dismissing herd immunity. If viruses didn't mutate we could have some confidence that the health service would cope and there will be no panicked lockdowns when it's all going to shit.

But it does seem that asymptomatic transmission and mutation is the driver of the global pandemic and that patchy and inadequate mass vaccination on a global scale is enhancing this. For example, the dominance of the UK variant that is more transmissible and hence deadly exported to countries with a less robust public health system.

Obviously vaccines that don't prevent infection but prevent symptomatic disease when a person only becomes infectious once symptomatic disease is established are effective. Especially when not in a pandemic.

@bumbleymummy you're right - I forgot I posted that. I suppose the issue is that I really didn't want to have the vaccine but I made myself do it because it's the right thing to do for public health. I admit that I'm angry with people who are in my mind selfish for not putting the public good before their own (irrational, selfish) feelings.

Incidentally, shaming people about not doing something has been shown to be a very poor way to get people to do that thing. It's likely that the shaming posts on this thread have the effect of making people LESS likely to get vaccinated. How does that stand with you, morally?

This.
If Boris Johnson were to stand on his podium, and announce that people who decline the vaccine invitation are "selfish twats", then the take up rate would be no where near it is now. People would kick back and decline the vaccine out of principle.
Shitty comments on MN has the same effect.

[quote gelatodipistacchio]@bumbleymummy you're right - I forgot I posted that. I suppose the issue is that I really didn't want to have the vaccine but I made myself do it because it's the right thing to do for public health. I admit that I'm angry with people who are in my mind selfish for not putting the public good before their own (irrational, selfish) feelings.[/quote]
Just because someone has made a different decision to you does not make them irrational. You decided that it was the ‘right thing to do’ but that’s your opinion and not everyone has to agree with you. I don’t think it is selfish to want to take your own health into consideration before other people. The info is still coming out about clot risks and you don’t know what people’s individual risk factors or personal circumstances are. People can only make decisions that they feel comfortable with and using bully tactics and insults isn’t helpful.

I admit that I'm angry with people who are in my mind selfish for not putting the public good before their own (irrational, selfish) feelings.

But they don’t think their feelings are irrational. They believe they are as right as you do. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@whataballbag

I think that a lot of people on this threat aren't anti vax at all. I'm certainly not. I've had one dose. There is an extremely high level of concern over the AZ jab, and honestly I don't see why alternatives aren't being offered to everyone who wants one.

Yep. I'm not an anti-vaxxer by any means but while they continue to only offer me AZ, I shall continue to refuse.

@mnhq can you clarify why me being rude to a poster got my post (probably rightly) deleted but when other posters call people selfish, twats, etc they are not deleted?

Because the rules don't seem to be being applied equally across the board.

Yep. I'm not an anti-vaxxer by any means but while they continue to only offer me AZ, I shall continue to refuse.

The good news is that supply has more or less caught up with demand in the US, which means that more Pfizer and Moderna vaccines should be available for export later this year to countries that can handle the logistics they require.

BonnieDundee

Have you reported the posts? I think they only delete reported posts.

@Roonerspismed has posted that NHS workers with narcolepsy were just left to get on with it. I didnt know this but this also rubber stamps my concerns.

I posted upthread about the woman in Glasgow who was left with blood blisters all over her body as a rare reaction to the AZ

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-womans-severe-reaction-covid-23945503

Scots woman's severe reaction to Covid vaccine turned both legs into 'giant blisters' and left her in wheelchair
GRAPHIC IMAGE WARNING: Sarah Beuckmann was treated at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital after the rash spread across large parts of her body leaving her covered in painful, open wounds.

And my first thought was what practical help is she getting? From the NHS or other organisations. Does she live in a place where a wheelchair can get around in or fit through doorways. THIS was my first thought. Hopefully shes recovered by now but i wonder if any of the very community minded people on this thread who might live in the area are willing to offer any practical help being as she has done the community minded thing. Im in North Essex so nowhere near.

@gelatodipistacchio I havent been abroad since 1986 Unllike those who insisted on still going on their ski trips early last year. Some of whom are on this board. Didnt hear much of the community rhetoric there

Oh and in case you havent realised............there is no point trying to blackmail poorer communities with losing things that have already been taken away and been out of reach for a long time, thanks to austerity. You cant blackmail ppl by threatening to take something they already dont have or do.

Some of us want to opt out of the hard parts

What's "hard" about having a vaccine you're excited about, believe has huge benefits for you and feel certain is completely safe? Again we are back full circle to this idea of virtuous sacrifice. It's only "hard" to be forced into an unwanted medical treatment. There is such a sense of seeking to punish here.

The hard parts are being experienced by those who have lost jobs and homes

I’ve booked my vaccine! I decided to get it done after all so let’s see what I get offered.

@MercyBooth

The hard parts are being experienced by those who have lost jobs and homes

I think I have just clocked your username! Ackley Bridge? Love it.

I dont watch it. I took it from the lead character in The Coffin Path. (a novel ive got but havent read yet)

@MercyBooth Ahh, not quite then. I watched Ackley Bridge with my DD and actually quite enjoyed it, would recommend for an easy watch.